Chapter 13
The scaly beast roared in defiance, its glassy eyes staring into the bridge of the vessel, completely yellow, and brimming with darkness.
"Dammit, it's been turned into a heartless!"
"Then do something about it!"
"You think I can survive out there!?" Jayson practically screeched. "I may have magic, but I'm not a miracle worker! We have to find some way around it!" Milo surged towards the controls, to everyone's surprise, and began to pilot the machine down a specific path.
"The book mentions a path that the beast can't get through, but we should be able to just fine, Jayson!" he turns to the boy, tossing him the book before returning to the controls. "Read the directions out to me so I don't crash us into the sea floor!" Jayson fumbles with the book for a moment before opening it, realizing its upside down, and flipping it right side up. He finds the page and points to the passage to help his reading.
"Turn right in three hundred feet!" Milo complies, the tunnel begins to slowly narrow, the beast is tailing them and gaining quickly.
"There's a sharp nosedive about two hundred feet ahead!" Milo doesn't waste a second as the dive is performed with admirable ability. The beast attempts to follow them, but can't due to the slim opening, just large enough for the submarine. As they descend further, everyone breathes a sigh of relief, and converges on Milo.
"How did you manage to pilot this thing? Even Helga had trouble with that!" Milo sheepishly shied away from pats on the back and held his hands up.
"I just watched the commander and some of the subordinates do it, and asked them the right questions, I guess. But we wouldn't have made it in time if Jayson wasn't able to read the Atlantean."
"You still managed to pull through and act when it was needed, you did just as much, if not more, than I did, Milo." Jayson slung an arm around him, and shook him lightly, he recoiled and adjusted his glasses, and sheepishly held his hand out, after receiving the book back he bid everyone a short farewell and retired to his quarters.
"Why is he like that?"
"It's how academic types are, real reserved and what-not, best to not bother thinking about it. Get some rest, it should be smooth sailing from here, we'll wake you if we need you." The commander dismissed them, and Jayson followed the Mole and the Doctor back to their quarters, making a small space for himself, he rested his head, and drifted into the darkness.
Jayson began to float down, and down, and even further down. Once he landed upon the ground he knew where he was, he's seen this before. He just couldn't place where he had seen it. The platform was made of stained glass, with beautiful art depicting himself, in a position of battle, with a strange Keyblade, gold and black, with purple, it glowed with the brilliance of a star's light and he was surrounded by people with masks- The Foretellers- each one surrounding him, all except for one, the mask of the Fox, which sat by his side. "Ava… how are we connected?" A voice suddenly spoke to him amidst the silence.
"You have so very much to learn about yourself, and about me. the one who is parallel to you, yet also connected."
"What do you mean?!" Suddenly three small pedestals erupted on the four 'corners' of the circular platform, the one in front held a sword, the one to the left held a shield, the one to the right held a staff, and the one behind him held a blinding radiant ball of light. Jayson instinctively approached the staff, and the voice spoke once again,
"The staff of Magic, a wonderful thing that can also bring ruin, is this the power you seek?" Without hesitation Jayson responded with a nod, and the staff disappeared, and the voice spoke once more,
"Now, what will you give up in exchange?" Jayson then approached the radiant ball of light, and once again the voice boomed,
"The light of the Heart, a heavy toll, but mastery of its counterpart may also be beneficial, are you sure you wish to give up this power… for now?" Hesitantly, Jayson nodded, and the light became overgrown with darkness, and so too did the platform, engulfing it, and swallowing Jayson whole. As he began to writhe within the darkness a different voice called out to him, the same one from the portal leading to Milo's world.
"You are weak to give up your light so easily, I will consume you, and all hope will be lost!"
"Remember, Jayson, you have the most powerful weapon of all…" And a thousand voices began speaking the same word at once, at varying volumes and intensities,
"KEYBLADE!"
Jayson shot awake, a cold sweat dripping down his forehead, he wiped it off quickly and noticed that no one else was in the room with him, for the better he thought, no one had to see whatever embarrassing movements he did during that strange dream… He pushed himself up and began to walk towards the bridge and noticed that everyone was waiting for him. The commander spoke first,
"Oh, good, I was hoping we wouldn't have to wake you up, we surfaced in a cave that was mentioned in the kid's book, so we're heading out and we could use the extra hands to help us against those fartless-"
"Heartless"
"yeah, yeah, whatever. let's roll out people!" The upper hatch was opened, and everyone climbed out, Jayson following right after Milo, and the hours of work to unpack everything had begun.
Much, much later than Jayson would like to admit, and they were done, a massive drill and many crates filled with Vinny's dynamite were out in the cave opening, as well as some military vehicles. The drilling began, with explosions soon to follow what the drill could not penetrate. Everyone who wasn't throwing dynamite or drilling was following closely behind in the vehicles, Milo ended up sitting next to Jayson, and awkwardly coughed to get his attention.
"So, Jayson, uh, you can read this Atlantean, right?"
"I guess? I don't know it by that name, we call it Mooglish, it's an old language spoken by some shopkeepers scattered around the worlds."
"You mean there are other worlds!? A-and they're populated by other people?!" Jayson winces once again 'So much for the world order…'
"Y-yeah, but don't tell the others, please?" Milo nodded vigorously, he then opened his book and flipped it to a specific page.
"Hey, so these next few chapters were always hard for me to decipher, and no matter what I tried, they always came out as a garbled mess. Think you could read them?" He hands the open book to the boy and Jayson is almost taken aback by the familiarity he feels towards the handwriting, but he can't place a name to the person. 'Been doing that a lot lately.' and he begins to read. He's shocked to find a detailed description of events that were obviously supposed to happen later than they were written, but what was most curious was the wording used right at the end. "Fly away from this place and sink beneath the ocean, escape the hand fate has dealt you and prove my theory correct. Signed, No Name." Jayson's hands began to shake as he handed Milo the book back, confusion written on the other man's face,
"So… what did you read?"
"It's… a lead, on my other mission, I'm looking for someone I forgot. Someone that knows me, they're fighting on my side, but they aren't here with me anymore. They helped those people escape their fate, it's why Atlantis was lost, they didn't perish, they fled destruction and made a new home under the sea… but I still don't know why they did it." Milo gazed down at the book, now slightly mortified at the news. He put a hand on Jayson's shoulder,
"You'll find them, you've gained some more knowledge on a situation you previously knew nothing about, that's got to count for something, right?" Jayson nodded in agreement and kept his gaze forward, thinking about what he had just read.
After some time, everyone had set up camp, they had dug out onto an open cave, which led deeper down into the unknown. Jayson told everyone he'd be gone for a minute and trudged off into a quiet place. He readied his Keyblade, and Riku appeared before him, almost as if he was there, and Jayson began to fight. Slashing and swiping at his master as he feigned the appropriate blocks and dodges, making sure to use as little magic as possible, he needed to bump his strength to keep up with the Heartless he'd be facing. As he neared the end of his session, he heard some footsteps behind him, and swung around to find Milo nose deep in his book, mystified. His gaze swung upward, and he let out an awkward greeting.
"H-hey, Jayson, I know you didn't want to be disturbed, but I had some more questions to ask about some more of the book that I can't read…"
"Sure, let me see it." As Milo hands him the book he notices that it's a chapter on magical abilities, there were the basics, like Fire, Water, Ice, etc. But further along he saw a page that caught his attention.
Lethal Frame: Use your most powerful 'stop' spell on your enemy, and your weakest 'haste' spell on yourself, this allows for a massive flurry of blows to be dealt to said enemy, which will become damaged once the spell is released either automatically or by the user. Level of difficulty: Master Level Spell.
"It's a whole chapter about magic!" "I'll have to remember that one spell though, it could be really useful later…" Milo's face fell at the news,
"Oh, so it's not for me then…" Jayson looked shocked, before having a bright idea.
"Hey Milo, hold my Keyblade."
"What?! I couldn't do that! It's yours!" He began gesticulating wildly, trying to come up with some excuse, but Jayson just pushed the weapon into his hands. Milo harrumphed as he held the weapon on his shoulder, nearly falling over from its weight. "It's heavy, why did you want me to do this?"
"Hold it straight forward," Milo complied, "Now I want you to think about the feeling of fire, a burning sensation, do you feel it?" Milo scrunched his face up and nodded after a minute of thinking, "That very essence of fire, build it up and hold onto it for a second," Milo nodded when he was ready to continue, "Now use the Keyblade as a conduit and let the fire out!" Milo released a cry as a bullet of flame shot forth from the Keyblade, which was dismissed shortly after. Jayson smirked.
"See? You can do it! Even without a Keyblade, there are plenty of spells to use, just think of basic elements for now, Fire, Water, Wind, Ice, and Lightning. The more you practice the better you'll get. I promise, and you can do all of them without a Keyblade! Neat, huh?" Milo stared forward, astonished at what he had done, he turned to the wielder, bewildered.
"H-h-how did you know I could pull it off?" Jayson chuckled.
"I felt a spark of light, deep down, and I knew that you could use magic. That's all." Milo's mouth was agape at this point, and he quickly shut it. They turned when they heard the others calling for them.
"We should probably head back now, yeah?"
"Yeah, but make sure to keep your magic a secret, okay? We don't know who we can trust here…"
"Right…" And they began to make their way back to their camp, unaware of the shadow watching them from afar, opening a corridor of darkness and exiting silently.
GummiPhone Entries:
Dive to the Heart (Station of Awakening): The area that Jayson found himself in while he slept, the stained glass reflects the person's heart and the connections they hold. It was not mentioned, but Riku, Kairi, as well as the other guardians of light are shown on Jayson's Station.
Lethal Frame: A high level spell, which combines 'Stop', 'Haste', as well as physical attacks to overwhelm the enemy with damaging slashes that register after the spell is ceased.
Milo*: A meek man with a large intelligence and a knack of the unknown and supernatural, he guides the expedition to Atlantis with an ancient book filled with Knowledge. He is a mage, but this is kept secret from the rest of the expedition.
The Book of Atlantis: The book Milo wields; it contains knowledge of the Atlanteans and of certain secrets that only Jayson seems to be able to read…
*Seeing a character that has already been used in the GummiPhone with and asterisk (*) beside their name means the information on this person has been updated or expanded upon.